


i have never known colour like this morning

by swimthewholeriogrande



Series: i'd be home with you [7]
Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, F/M, Flashbacks, Hopeful Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Nightmares, Team as Family, Torture, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-26
Updated: 2019-05-26
Packaged: 2020-03-19 19:25:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18976843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swimthewholeriogrande/pseuds/swimthewholeriogrande
Summary: Readjusting in six acts; or, the opera of a resurrection.





	i have never known colour like this morning

**Author's Note:**

> I'm gonna finish this series with this chapter so I hope the ending suits people! I'm gonna start a oneshot series of Jake Whump-shots (my addiction) so if you have any suggestions please let me know! Thanks for reading x
> 
> Title from In a Week by Hozier

Blink. Breath. 

Amy Santiago stands in another woman's apartment. 

It's a nice place - beautiful, in a damn good neighbourhood in Brooklyn, in that sweet spot between maybe too dangerous for two cops to live in and completely hipster gentrified. It's pristine to an unnatural extent, like this woman and her husband disappeared very suddenly, and all their friends could think to do with their home was keep it clean and ready - ready for two people who were never coming back. 

Amy is standing in a life she was stolen from over a year ago. She can't quite get past the doorway. Then she hears the tap-tap of Jake's cane, feels his chest against her back, and she thinks that at least this one thing hasn't changed. 

Her wedding ring glints so dully; she needs to polish it. Jake's clicks against it when he takes her hand. "We made it," he breathes, childlike wonder, and she doesn't have the heart to ask him _but where are we? ___

__-_ _

__It's perfect, but then it's like he never left._ _

__Cause one moment Jake and Amy are cooking while Gina sets up a DVD for Iggy in the sitting room - the squad are taking turns staying with them, until things normalise a little - and the next second Jake glances his hand off a hot pan and all he can smell is searing flesh, his own skin burning, and he's on his knees. He can't shut out that smell, or the sound of his own grotesque keening, faster than the speed of light._ _

__"Good boy," Gerry soothes. The lighter is divine lightning, and Jake feels bile rise in his throat, chokes on it, and thinks that burning alive smells like cooking pork._ _

__He never left. He's never leaving. He can't see Amy and he's never leaving that room._ _

__Then there's a child's voice: "Jay!"_ _

__Jake draws his face from his hands; there's never been a child before. He sees through blurry eyes Gina's daughter a few feet away, all wide eyes and fat little fists, and his hiccuping breath slows for an instant - there wasn't a child there, ever. Where is he?_ _

__"Jaaay," Iggy insists, unable to pronounce the 'k' of it. Jake blinks owlishly at her._ _

__Now he sees Gina beside her daughter, Amy leaning against the counter. He can't make sense of the scene._ _

__Iggy reaches out to him and he reaches out back. Her fingers are so small. "Don' cry." she orders, looking so much like her mom for a split second, and Jake uncurls his hunched form just a little bit, the blister on his thumb throbbing.__

____

__"Okay," he whispers._ _

____

____

-

____

Sometimes they wake up like livewires on the same circuit, startling up just seconds after each other. It makes sense, Amy thinks, that they'd dream in tandem about the hell they'd done together. They do everything together, she supposed, so they do this too.

____

So she's still wiping the sweat off her face from a night terror when Jake jerks beside her in the bed, the sheets twisted around him, and then comes to life with a juddering moan. He reaches for her blindly, just like she had reached for him seconds ago, and then they both relax, shoulders curling inwards.

____

"We really gotta get some sleep sometime," he huffs, and Amy snickers despite herself. The dream - the memory - is fading with every waking second, soon to be a shadowy unpleasantry, at least until tomorrow night.

____

"Wish our biggest problem was still you snoring," she retorts, and Jake mock-scoffs.

____

"I never snored!" She can feel his heartbeat crashing against her shoulder, sea waves in the biggest storm there could be. "Not my fault you've got bat ears."

____

"Well." Amy lays her head down on his chest, where she knows scar tissue has healed into a silky white unidentifiable shape. "We've had worse nights."

____

(And that's maybe never been more true for two people in the world.)

____

-

____

"Hello. _Hello_. Peralta."

____

Jake snorts, startles out of his doze, and comes face to face with a, as per usual, stony-faced Holt. He stifles a yawn and smiles as wide as he can without it being Joker-y.

____

"Cap'n!" he says, just to annoy him, "how can I help you?"

____

"You fell asleep on my couch, Peralta."

____

"Shit,' Jake hisses, half to himself, and scrambles to his feet - not at all because he doesn't like having a man leaning over him, that's not at all, it's nothing to do with Gerry, nope. "Sorry, Captain, I -"

____

"It's all right." Holt is standing stiffly, even for him, and it's making Jake wary in a confused rather than scared sort of way. "I woke you up because the DA just gave me a call. They've set a court date."

____

Jake's leg aches. He reaches for his cane and supports himself on it, tries to focus on that dull pain rather than what has been said. "Oh." His voice is far away.

____

"Peralta, since you and Amy were the only...well, witnesses for what occurred - you've been called to the stand. Of course, this was expected, but I understand that..."

____

Jake isn't really listening anymore. Instead he's wondering where Cheddar is, and hoping that Amy is enjoying her lunch with Rosa and - oh wow, he really wants to see Amy right now - and thinking how it's been three months since they were rescued and his leg isn't getting better. Won't ever be better. He feels like House, and that makes a slightly hysterical chuckle rise in his chest, but he quashes it because it doesn't seem appropriate; he's still reacclimating to social rules, his therapist has told him.

____

"...December 14th..."

____

Ah. Three months away, then. Jake thinks of winter and court dates and nothing at all.

____

-

____

Amy has a scar. Amy has a scar but it's not a scar. Amy has a scar but it's not a scar because Gerry has only just lifted the box cutter away from her neck, so blood has only just begun to flood her collarbones, and she'd almost think he'd slit her throat, there's that much blood. She cough, splutters on nothing, and Jake goes wild in the corner.

____

"No, no, _no_ , no please God no, Amy, Amy, no no no -"

____

Jake thinks he cut too deep, Amy realises. Jake thinks I'm bleeding out on a dirty sitting room floor less than five feet away from him, and he can't do a damn thing. Amy turns her head to see him but there's so much blood that her vision is fuzzy, so much pain that she wonders if Gerry really did just kill her. She sees Jake rage, a storm in a bottle and a cheap set of plastic ties, but all she can do is look at him - like he's the last thing she'll ever see. Maybe he is.

____

Then, a gentle hand on her wrist, and she is in Charles Boyle's apartment, and he is speaking to her so softly. She moves her fingers from where they were wrapped around her own throat; there's no blood, no pain, just a creeping sense of embarrassment.

____

"Oh god, Charles, I -"

____

"It's okay! Don't worry about it." Boyle shuffles away from her, gives her some space. His eyes are earnest and wide. "It makes total sense, to have moments like that. I would."

____

Any thinks of waking up in a hospital room and Boyle lying right to her face as she lay there half-dead, telling her the man she feared most in the world was dead. And she thinks that he is one of the kindest men she has ever known.

____

"Thank you," she tells him, more than for today, and he just smiles.

____

"No problem." he replies, and she knows he means it, maybe more than anyone does.

____

-

____

They're lying on their bed, the mattress they bought together. Jake can't stop thinking about Christmas (or rather, what is coming nine days before Christmas).

____

He doesn't really celebrate it, not in the religious sense obviously. He's always thought Hanukkah was cooler anyway - more presents, right? But he's always loved it. He never got to visit Santa as a kid, so you better believe he went in college under the guise of bringing a younger cousin - but then it had just been a guy in a suit, and he hadn't felt that Christmas magic people in movies always felt, so he figured he'd skip the magic and just do the presents part with the people he loves.

____

He loves Amy, a whole lot. But he doesn't want it to be Christmastime with her this year, because he never wants to see that man.

____

The silence between them is loud. Amy turns her head so her nose brushes Jake's neck, throws an arm over his stomach, and both of them revel in the touch even four months after the rescue. Jake doesn't think he'll ever stop.

____

"Penny for them," she murmurs into his jaw, leaving a kiss, and Jake feels it right down to his toes.

____

"You, mostly," he tells her, not entirely dishonestly, and she huffs out a delicate breath, skating over his throat.

____

"S'getting cold." she says, and there are tears in her voice like she knows exactly what he's thinking about, so Jake wipes them off her cheek and buries his face in her hair.

____

_The sound of buzzing electricity. A wail that climbs, that hurts his ears, stop stop stop stop -_

____

"I'll keep holding you." he promises. "All night. You won't be cold."

____

And how funny it is, that when December comes, Gerry is in fact just another man in a suit. He's a mall-Santa-maniac, not nearly as tall as they remember him being, and his hands shake and his face is furrowed in a way they never saw - fear, Amy supplies, and Jake realises that it looks pretty much the same on everyone.

____

Amy is called first, because she remembers the very start more clearly than he does. Jake watches her progress to the stand, how she is slightly off balance, has been since they returned, but how she never loses the way. He leans on the sleek wood of the bench and watches her take the seat, face fierce and lovely, and thinks _holy shit, she can do this._.

____

Her wedding ring gleams. "My name is Amy Santiago," she says, "and I have a story to tell you all."

____


End file.
